The Revelation of Eden Pruitt, page 10
Asher made a clicking sound with his tongue and pointed his finger at her like he was shooting a gun.
Eden looked down at her tablet. She tried to imagine creating this plug-in, whipping up an algorithm capable of accomplishing what Asher had just explained. She wouldn’t have the first clue where to begin, and yet, between last night’s assembly and now, he had done both. The guy was obnoxiously impressive.
“Why did you name yourself Gollum?” Cleo blurted.
“What’s that?”
“Gollum.” She folded her arms, looking disgusted. Like someone who had just yanked the mask off her favorite superhero, only to discover an arrogant jerk underneath. “Of all the names you could have given yourself, why that one?”
“The Amber Highway is my precious,” he said with a smirk.
“Gollum dies at the end.”
“Thanks for the spoiler.”
“You haven’t read the books?”
“I watched the first movie.”
“You watched the first movie,” Cleo repeated, speaking the words slowly, enunciating each syllable.
“It was really long.”
The disgusted look on her face grew more pronounced by the second.
Asher rolled his eyes. “Can you handle this assignment or not?”
“Plugging in names and looking for flags?” Cleo asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, his eyebrows raised like he really needed an answer. Like he really wasn’t sure if they could handle it.
“We can handle it just fine,” Cleo said.
“Good.” He zipped up the backpack and slid it over his shoulder and headed for the exit when the half-opened door swung open all the way, nearly hitting him as it did. He sidestepped into its shadow.
Dayne stepped inside, freshly shaved and bright-eyed. Last night’s worry was for naught. The camaraderie they’d built seemed just as strong this morning as he held a device aloft. He had yet to notice Asher, who was standing to his left, behind the opened door, outside the periphery of his vision.
“Look who’s here,” Eden exclaimed.
Dayne pivoted, spotted the young behemoth of a man, and quickly hid the device behind his back.
Asher stared suspiciously.
Eden squirmed.
Dayne forced a smile and bounced on his toes. “I was just stopping by to check on the patient,” he said. “Who is—I must say—looking much better this morning.”
“Thank you,” Cleo said, but her usual excitement when in Dayne’s presence was nowhere to be found. She kept glancing forlornly at the picture of her mother on the front page.
“What do we have here?” Dayne asked, gesturing to the tablets.
“Our assignment,” Cleo said.
“I have one for you, too.” Asher unzipped his bag once again and removed a third tablet. He handed it to Dayne with the same explanation he’d offered Eden and Cleo. Dayne updated him on the prison leak. His team was working on it now. Asher nodded, then invited Dayne to a meeting in the boardroom after lunch.
“Can I come?” Eden asked.
Asher gave her a dismissive once-over. “Why?”
Her cheeks flamed. “I—I thought I was going to be part of the plans.”
“You are. By working on that.” With a nod at her tablet, he exited the room.
Eden fumed.
Dayne ran his pointer finger beneath his collar and apologized for being late. “The newsroom is buzzing.” He peeked into the hallway to make sure Asher was out of earshot, then closed and locked the door.
“Is that it?” Eden stared at the gadget he’d come into the room touting.
Dayne set it on her palm. “Everything’s connected.”
It was the same shape and weight as a phone—one of the newer foldable models. But when she flipped it open, there was no screen. Just a small numerical keypad on one side of the fold and a circular lens on the other. “How does it work?”
“You push this button here,” he said, showing her. “The person on the receiving end will get a notification.”
“Then what?”
“If the person’s available when they receive the notification, they could answer immediately. If not, they call us back.”
Eden took a deep breath and pushed the button. The device released a ping, and the circular lens projected a small holographic, scrolling ellipse.
Eden’s heart fluttered. If someone answered, who would it be? Violet’s father? An off-the-grid PI hired by Violet’s father? What would this person do when they saw her—a wanted fugitive presumed dead?
The device pinged again.
The ellipse continued to scroll.
Her palms grew sweaty.
She licked her bottom lip.
She needed someone to answer. She needed to know why Barrett and Violet had left her parents. And they needed to know they were in grave danger.
But the scrolling ellipse stopped.
Instead of a ping, the device blooped.
The holographic projection disappeared.
Her heart sank. “Now what?”
“Now we wait,” Dayne said with a shrug. “Hopefully, someone calls back.”
17
Barrett flipped to the next page in the scientific journal looking visibly troubled as he waited for the pot on the stove to boil. Violet could see the tension in the corners of his eyes, in the slant of his mouth. He’d gone to bed that way. He’d woken up that way, too. The radio had called him a terrorist. His picture would be splashed across Concordia again, only this time, he wouldn’t be a missing boy, he would be a murderous boy.
Around him, the kitchen was no longer deplorable. Last night, they’d cleaned it together as well as they could with the supplies on hand until the floor was swept and the counters were clear and the sink didn’t stink like sewage. When they were finished, hunger had gotten the better of them. Violet’s jar of half-eaten peanut butter would no longer suffice. They needed sustenance.
Barrett had rummaged inside the pantry with alarming boldness. Violet had never been in the pantry. Father used to keep it padlocked. Now the padlock was gone. Barrett had found one can of beans and two cans of corn. He’d heated them on the stovetop in the same pot he was now using to boil water. As they ate, they’d kept their ears perked, listening for Father’s truck. But Father never came. Barrett fell asleep on the couch. Violet tried sleeping in her old bed. But nightmares plagued her. So she’d taken her dusty blanket and her dusty pillow and she curled up on the floor by the couch until morning came.
Now they were going to have spaghetti for breakfast, and Barrett was looking through Father’s scientific journals like they might provide the answers they’d come for. Violet kept glancing at the closet door with the moth-eaten coats, where the answers actually were. She tried to work up the courage to tell him, but every time the words got close, her ears would start ringing and her throat would squeeze shut.
Barrett flipped another page. “At least my parents know I’m not dead,” he said, then immediately frowned. “I hate to think of what the media is putting them through, though.”
They had yet to turn the radio back on, despite Barrett’s longing glances at the unplugged cord. He wanted to hear more; she obviously didn’t. So the radio remained off.
“Hey!” Barrett said, standing straighter. He pointed at the camera. Last night, they’d plugged the black cord into an outlet, then they attached the camera to the black cord. Nothing had happened. Now, a small, green light was on.
The camera had come back to life!
Her stomach did a strange pirouette as she snatched it off the counter. With a trembling breath, she held the power button until the screen illuminated. Then she covered her mouth with her hand, her fingers atremble as Barrett came beside her to see what she was seeing. A woman with raven hair and wide-set eyes the color of coffee. Shaped like a bird’s tail, each with a single brush of straight lashes. Violet’s eyes were a mixture of hers and Father’s. A little like both, but not quite like either.
“Is that your mom?” Barrett asked in a tone as reverent as her breath.
Violet grazed her thumb across Mother’s chin and nodded.
“She’s beautiful,” he said.
She was.
So very beautiful.
She toggled to the next photograph.
A little girl twirling in a meadow of violets.
That meadow was her namesake.
According to Mother, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Until she held her own Violet in her arms. A child Father thought would never come, despite his prophetic vision. As he told it, an angel had visited him in the night. It flew through his window and told him he would bring forth a child who would save the world. A cruel joke at the time. His wife couldn’t bear children. Fertility drugs hadn’t worked. Not even IVF.
But then they received the strange phone call, and his prophetic vision had been magnified. Suddenly, his wife’s infertility wasn’t cruel at all, but the necessary path that led to the prophecy’s fulfillment. For this reason, he allowed his wife to name their child. A decision he would later regret. Mother was weak, he liked to say. It’s why she left. She didn’t have the strength required to see the job through. Father hated that his daughter—a girl destined to save the world—had been named by someone so cowardly. With his own consent.
The water in the pot began to boil.
Something beeped. Or more like pinged.
They looked about, perplexed by the sound, then pinpointed where it was coming from.
The closet.
Barrett hurried toward it.
Violet’s throat closed. She brought her hands to her neck and backed away—fear choking her. Strangling her. She couldn’t breathe as he opened the closet door, unaware of the other door. The one behind those moth-eaten coats. He began digging inside pockets until he pulled out a device.
By then, the pinging had stopped.
“What is this?” he asked, turning the device over in his hand.
Violet didn’t know.
Nor did she very much care.
All that mattered was shutting that door.
18
Dayne didn’t stay. He would carry out his assignment between his ongoing work in the newsroom.
Eden sat in the chair by Cleo’s bed while they entered the names into the plug-in and waded through the onslaught of information. They were looking for flags while Concordia Baltimore played quietly on the television mounted in the corner of Cleo’s room. National had begun regurgitating news. About the raid in DC. About the prisoners. About confirmed deaths (Cleo Ransom) and suspected deaths (Eden Pruitt). About Barrett Barr and his unidentified friend and Interitus recruitment strategies.
A nurse came to check Cleo’s vitals and change her bandage. Eden stepped out for a snack. There was a complimentary vending machine down the hall. She snagged a box of Whoppers for Cleo and a bag of Salt and Vinegar chips for herself. When she returned, the nurse was gone and the gadget Dayne left behind still hadn’t pinged.
She tossed the Whoppers to Cleo.
She opened the box and rattled a few chocolates into her palm when a burst of dramatic instruments sounded from the television—a staccato arrangement that would have everyone within earshot looking up, paying attention as a male voiceover and a red screen with the Concordia logo interrupted the local broadcast.
“This is a Concordia News Special Report.”
Eden’s stomach dropped. She braced herself for any number of possibilities. The prisoners’ executions. The apprehension of Barrett and Violet. The apprehension of her own parents, who would undoubtedly be framed as members of Interitus, too. The possibilities were so paralyzing, she couldn’t pin any specific one down. All she could do was hold her breath as Cleo pointed the remote at the television to turn up the volume.
Chief anchor, Chuck Perez, replaced Concordia’s logo. He sat behind his news desk in a suit, staring somberly at the camera while late-breaking music played in the background.
“It’s 11:06 here in Chicago and I’m Chuck Perez. We understand that there has been a mandatory lockdown in Minneapolis after multiple incidents of unexplained civilian death and sickness. Hospitals are overflowing with patients who are experiencing the sudden onset of serious and disturbing symptoms. The National Guard has been deployed and is on the scene.”
“What the heck?” Cleo exclaimed as the screen cut to footage of soldiers in hazmat suits, walking amongst bodies strewn along the city’s central business district. All the while, Chuck Perez continued, informing the public of what they knew and what they didn’t—the latter vastly outweighing the former. Was this bio-warfare? Retaliation by what remained of Interitus after the military bombed its headquarters? Or could this be an international adversary catching America unaware?
Eden clutched the gadget in her hand. Barrett and Violet were in Minneapolis. Was it a coincidence? Or was this late-breaking news and the presence of Barrett and Violet somehow intertwined? She gave the gadget a shake, as if doing so might force it to ping. But the thing remained frustratingly silent. Eden abandoned her bag of chips in the chair by Cleo’s bedside and tucked her tablet beneath her arm.
“Are you leaving?” Cleo asked, pushing herself upright.
“I have to find out what’s going on.”
“So do I!” Cleo flopped against her pillow and growled at the ceiling. “Why is my dumb leg in this stupid sling?”
Eden shot her irritated friend an apologetic grimace. With a promise to return as soon as possible, she hurried from the room.
Outside, the sky was blue and cloudless. The leaves on the trees were vibrant shades of yellows and reds. An autumn chill permeated the air as she jogged across the street, past the east tower, into the west. She rode the elevator to the fourth floor and stepped into a newsroom so abuzz with activity, nobody noticed her at all. Keyboards clacked and phones rang as Dayne exited the glass doors separating the newsroom from an office beyond. He carried a stack of printouts to a group of people bent over a nearby table.
Eden waded through the chaos to meet him, her cheeks flushed from the brisk jog outside. “What’s happening?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Dayne replied. “Our wire started buzzing forty-five minutes ago.”
She looked at the flat screens circling the top of the large room—each one featuring Chuck Perez as the story unfolded.
A woman began spreading the printouts on the table when a frazzled-looking gentleman hurried from the same office Dayne had exited. “We’ve got more,” he said, holding the papers aloft.
The woman grabbed them and quickly scanned the contents. “They’re saying it could be a toxin.”
Dayne read over her shoulder, his eyes slightly manic as they twitched back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.
Eden noted the time on the monitors. It was definitely past lunch, and Dayne didn’t appear to be leaving soon. “Would you like me to go to the meeting on your behalf?”
“The meeting,” he said, as if just remembering. He looked at his watch. “If you don’t mind, that would be great.”
She didn’t mind in the slightest.
Seizing the opportunity, Eden exited the newsroom as quickly as she’d come and took the elevator to the ground floor. She cut through the courtyard between the west and east towers and was just lifting her hand to let herself into the boardroom when the gadget in her pocket pinged. She pressed her palm over the sound and hurried away, ducking around a corner, pushing into a ladies’ room. She closed the door, turned the bolt, removed the gadget, and pressed the correct button before the pinging could stop.
The circular lens transmitted a three-dimensional hologram.
“Barrett!” she cried.
There he was, a smaller version projected inches in front of her, his mouth agape—a stunned holographic FaceTime. She let herself into a stall and locked that door, too.
“You’re alive!” Barrett said, looking every bit as relieved as she felt. “We knew you had to be. But Concordia kept saying you weren’t and—” He glanced down at his hand. “Cleo,” he said. “What about Cleo?”
“She’s fine.”
Relatively speaking.
Barrett heaved a loud, relieved sigh. “Where are you? What’s going on? How is this even possible?” He moved his finger from her to him. “This thing began pinging. We found it inside a coat, but we didn’t know who was calling and it took me a while to figure out how to call back.” Barrett pulled at his jaw. “I don’t understand. Why were you using this thing to call Violet’s father? That’s her name—Violet.”
“Barrett,” Eden said, interrupting his freak out. She needed him to focus. “Why are you in Minneapolis? Where are my parents?”
“They’re in Milwaukee with Dr. Norton. Jack found out why Violet’s signal is weaker. She doesn’t have a Queen Bee.”
“What?” Eden exclaimed.
“The master node. It’s not there. Her system doesn’t have one.”
“What does that mean?”
“She can’t be controlled.”
Eden’s heart jumped.
“Jack doesn’t know how to replicate it. But we think Violet’s dad knows. So we came here, looking for him.” Barrett shoved his fingers into shaggy hair, looking very much like his mind was spinning as fast as her own. “Ellery showed up! She hid in the back of Jack’s car and came to Dr. Norton’s. He totally freaked out. Then Annette came, too, and the news hit about the airstrike on Interitus Headquarters in DC. Cass, arrested with Prudence Dvorak. You, dead. Cleo, dead. Everyone lost their minds. Your mom started crying. Your dad looked like he was about to faint. That’s when I caught Violet sneaking off. She told me I could come with. She said yes. Like, an actual word. She’s talking, sort of. We hitched a ride with this old man in a red pickup. We ended up at border patrol. Now the news is saying I—”
“Barrett,” she interrupted, putting some force behind his name. She’d forgotten how fast he could talk. How many words he could string together without pausing for a breath. “What’s going on in Minneapolis?”
